DAC, IP, Parties and Philanthropy

DAC, IP, Parties and Philanthropy
by Daniel Payne on 05-07-2015 at 2:00 pm

My typical DACtrip is a blur of non-stop interviews with EDA, IP and Semiconductor vendors followed by a few dozen blogs to share what I’ve learned. I just became aware of something a bit different at DAC this year by talking with Jill Jacobs, an organizer for an event dubbed Heart of Technology (HoT) where they raise money for… Read More


The 2015 DAC Designer and IP Track

The 2015 DAC Designer and IP Track
by Anne Cirkel on 04-27-2015 at 8:00 pm

What an exciting year for DAC with record submissions in nearly every category. Most impressive is the increase in Designer and IP Track submissions, content that is helping to continue to evolve and improve the show. If you haven’t already registered, why not do so now?

A brief bit of background about the conference: DAC’s roots… Read More


Are There Trojans in Your Silicon? You Don’t Know

Are There Trojans in Your Silicon? You Don’t Know
by Paul McLellan on 04-22-2015 at 7:00 am

Yesterday was the Mentor users’ group U2U. As usual, Wally Rhines gave the keynote, this year entitled Secure Silicon, Enabler for the Internet of Things. Wally started off saying it was a challenge to find a new angle. The number of news articles on cloud computing has exploded from nothing to 72,000 last year. On IoT from … Read More


From Medical and Wearables to Big Data, in 日本語/한국어/中文

From Medical and Wearables to Big Data, in 日本語/한국어/中文
by Paul McLellan on 04-10-2015 at 7:00 am

Whether it’s a tiny always-on medical device or a secure cloud network processing Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT) is bringing new challenges to IC design. Almost by definition an IoT device contains a microcontroller of some sort along with some way of communicating. Unlike our smartphones where we are reasonably happy … Read More


Secret Sauce for Successful Mixed-signal SoCs

Secret Sauce for Successful Mixed-signal SoCs
by admin on 03-31-2015 at 12:00 pm

For a design engineer engulfed in the daily rigorous routine of having to keep in sync with updates from various design team members as well the dictums of the design management team, the task of remaining up-to-date with the design information is very often daunting.

What design changes have been checked in this week? Is the verification… Read More


The Earth is Not Flat; Neither is IP

The Earth is Not Flat; Neither is IP
by Paul McLellan on 03-29-2015 at 7:00 pm

Chip design is largely about assembling pre-designed IP, either developed in other groups in the same company, or brought in from a 3rd party, or occasionally developed within the SoC design group itself. But that makes it sound like it is a bunch of blocks linked together with some interconnect, but of course another important … Read More


25 Years of SNUG; 50 Years of Moore’s Law

25 Years of SNUG; 50 Years of Moore’s Law
by Paul McLellan on 03-26-2015 at 8:00 am

Earlier this week it was the Synopsys user group meeting SNUG. Not just any old SNUG but the 25th Annual SNUG. The first one was 15th March 1991 and was attended by 100 people. At the time, Synopsys had annual revenues of $22M. This year, the various SNUGs around the world will have a total attendance of 10,000 people and Synopsys revenue… Read More


ARM & Cadence IP Partnership for Faster SoC Design

ARM & Cadence IP Partnership for Faster SoC Design
by Eric Esteve on 03-18-2015 at 9:50 am

IP vendors always try to create differentiation, especially when designing protocol based IP. You can differentiate by building the most performing controller but you will probably miss the expectation of these customers who don’t search for performance but just compliance to a specific standard. Or the vendor may want to design… Read More


Exploring IP You Didn’t Design Yourself

Exploring IP You Didn’t Design Yourself
by Paul McLellan on 03-17-2015 at 7:00 am

Starvision Pro from Concept Engineering is a bit like one of those Leatherman multi-tools, it has a huge number of different functions, some of them fairly specialized but nonetheless incredibly useful. Many of these functions are unique to Starvision Pro, with nothing else like it on the market. Some new videos, produced by EDA… Read More


Semiconductor IP Make the World Go Round!

Semiconductor IP Make the World Go Round!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-16-2014 at 3:00 pm

Semiconductor IP really does make the life of a semiconductor professional much easier which is why Google brings us so much IP traffic. If you look at the SemiWiki analytics, IP has always been a top draw. In comparison to standard EDA traffic, IP gets about 25% more views per blog on average. Synopsys is not only the leading EDA company… Read More